DAILY DIRT: Oh, to have been a lefty like Gail Goodrich, Sudden Sam or Little Vic

July 6, 2025 | By Steve Eighinger MRN Minister of Culture and Doctor of Love

Gail Goodrich was a smooth shooting lefty who played basketball for UCLA in college and with the Los Angeles Lakers in the NBA. He was California cool. Photo from Malcolm W. Emmons via wikimedia commons

Daily Dirt for Sunday, July 6, 2025

Gail Goodrich’s left-handed jump shots were the epitome of cool … Welcome to today’s three thoughts that make up Vol. 1,334 of The Daily Dirt.

1. Just like other kids, when I was a wee lad I had dreams.

Some kids wanted to grow up to be president.

Others wanted to be an astronaut.

Some simply wanted to fix cars or build houses.

Me?

I wanted to be left-handed. But not just any left-hander. I idolized Gail Goodrich of the Los Angeles Lakers. His left-handed jump shots were a thing of true beauty.

But most of all, I dreamed of being a left-handed baseball player. And not just any lefty. I wanted to be Vic Davalillo, the little lefty who used to spray base hits all over old and decrepit Municipal Stadium in Cleveland, or Sudden Sam McDowell, the Indians’ left-handed pitcher who could throw the ball about 300 mph.

There was always something so appealing about a left-handed athlete, especially when he would be playing baseball. Right-handers were never known as something as cool as a “southpaw,” or a “mollydooker,” if you will.

Being left-handed in what is primarily a right-handed world can have its drawbacks, but not in sports.

“In medieval Europe, left-handedness was thought to have ties to witchcraft and, for some religious groups, demonic possession,” reasons writer Nicole Villeneuve. “Suspicions lingered for centuries — even into the early 1900s, left-handed schoolchildren in the U.S. and Europe were (held back in school) to (learn to) use their right hand instead. These perceptions didn’t shift in any major way until the mid-20th century.”

That must have been about the time Sandy Koufax arrived, eh?

Throughout history, only about 10 percent of humans have been lefties, and interestingly, southpaws tend to run in families. Research has identified rare genetic variants appear more often in left-handed people than in right-handed people. Other studies suggest a left-handed preference may be detected in the womb as early as 10 weeks into pregnancy based on thumb-sucking activities.

Handedness also appears to have an environmental component. In a 2019 U.K. study of more than 500,000 participants, the percentage of people identifying as left-handed increased steadily among those born each year starting from around 1920 until roughly 1970, when it leveled off. But this wasn’t simply because more left-handed people began to be born, according to Villeneuve. Instead, it was likely due to a decline in the social pressure to switch hands.

One pattern that consistently shows up in handedness studies is that men are more likely to be left-handed than women. The gap isn’t huge, but given the low number of lefties overall, it is statistically significant and scientists still aren’t entirely sure why this is the case.

One of the bottom lines, however, is that lefties have always seemed to have an edge in certain fast-paced competitive sports. Because southpaws are relatively rare, right-handed athletes don’t get as much practice facing them, whereas lefties spend their whole lives playing against righties. This creates an element of unpredictability for righties when facing a lefty: The latter’s movements, angles, and timing can feel unfamiliar to their opponents. In baseball, for example, left-handed pitchers are especially prized for their ability to throw off a batter’s rhythm.

I’m not sure, but maybe all of this helps explain my lifelong love affair with Sudden Sam McDowell, Vic Davalillo and Gail Goodrich.

2. Did you know (Part 417)

That the world’s largest hot dog weighed about 265 pounds and was created in Paraguay in 2011. The dog was about 670 feet in length.
That if you count a cricket’s chirps for 15 seconds and add 37, you will have the approximate temperature.
That Americans eat an average of 5.5 gallons of ice cream per year. July is the month when the most ice cream is sold in the U.S.
That in the most northern parts of the world, the sun doesn’t set for weeks in the summer. This includes some northern parts of Norway, such as Svalbard, where you will see the sun 24 hours a day between April 20 and Aug. 22.
That the watermelon is actually part of the cucumber, pumpkin and squash family.